{"id":818645,"date":"2025-03-28T14:46:10","date_gmt":"2025-03-28T12:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=818645"},"modified":"2025-03-28T14:55:33","modified_gmt":"2025-03-28T12:55:33","slug":"how-ai-is-being-used-for-advanced-payment-scams-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/industry-news\/818645\/how-ai-is-being-used-for-advanced-payment-scams-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"How AI is being used for advanced payment scams in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>AI is a key weapon for modern scammers in South Africa \u2013 but payment providers are fighting back with their own use of AI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is according to Justin Carstens, Regional Manager at Altron FinTech subsidiary Altron NuPay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/fintech.altron.com\/?utm_source=BusinessTech&amp;utm_medium=Article&amp;utm_term=March+2025\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Click here to learn more about Altron FinTech.<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Carstens said that the biggest threat AI poses to the payments sector is the scale at which it enables scammers to operate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAI can consume and process vast volumes of pure data in a short period of time to be used by scammers,\u201d said Carstens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis is not being helped by the growth of social media, where everyone posts lots of personal data.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With this personal information, AI can be used by scammers for social engineering &#8211; building trust with potential victims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It can also be used to crack banking passwords, with data like the names of the victim\u2019s family members and their pets two prime examples of sensitive data posted online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Phishing and vishing<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Carstens highlighted that AI is also being used by scammers to analyse and replicate organisations\u2019 corporate identities and tones for their phishing and vishing efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With AI, scammers can generate \u201crealistic\u201d fake communications, which are effective at convincing employees to give up important financial and banking information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This extends to call centres, too, where fraudsters use AI to replicate how a company\u2019s customer care professionals and chat bots typically interact with customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By pretending to be a call centre agent or chat bot, scammers are able to convince victims to give up their banking credentials and other personal data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>AI can save the day<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>While AI is being used extensively by scammers, Carstens said it is equally powerful in the hands of payment providers and businesses who want to combat malicious actors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is thanks to AI being incredibly effective at analysing an organisation\u2019s entire data ecosystem and combining information from various sources to identify irregularities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example: If an employee processes a debit order at 23:00 on the 18th of the month, when working hours are 8:00 to 17:00 and debit orders are usually processed around the 25th, AI can automatically identify this as an irregularity and notify the relevant parties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is the most proactive form of dealing with scammers, and can combat malicious attempts before they get off the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Carstens said AI is also great for onboarding new clients and employees, as it can be used to run comprehensive screening checks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These checks will find if someone has falsified information on their application, or if they are related to another customer who was problematic or fraudulent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Altron FinTech<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Altron FinTech works with South African payment providers and businesses to ensure they are leveraging the latest technologies to streamline their finance and payments systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This includes empowering these organisations through the use AI across areas like onboarding, monitoring, and transaction facilitation \u2013 all of which helps your business reduce its risk of becoming a fraud victim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/fintech.altron.com\/?utm_source=BusinessTech&amp;utm_medium=Article&amp;utm_term=March+2025\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Click here to learn more about Altron FinTech.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AI is being used to perpetrate more advanced scams than ever before \u2013 but payment providers are fighting back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":818646,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10459],"tags":[18470],"class_list":["post-818645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry-news","tag-altron-fintech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=818645"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":818730,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818645\/revisions\/818730"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/818646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=818645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=818645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=818645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}